close to the edge: Southern takes charge against Golden Lions

Just like that, the men’s basketball team is right on track following their eight game win streak and lost to Jackson State with a close score of 81-80 with a 66-58 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
On the February 13, match up at F.G Clark Activity Center against the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, not only proved to the loyal fans, but also to the team themselves, that they are more than prepared to compete in the upcoming Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament.
Southern (9-3, 17-8) places second in the standings for the SWAC tourney. The 6’4 senior guard, Adrian Rodgers, was on fire to open the game scoring the Jags’ first eight points. The two teams were giving a sense that it would be a “tug of war” match where they would both trade leads. Southern quickly realized that they had one mission and that was to dominate at all cost, which is exactly what they did.
Rodgers scored the high of 12 points and senior guard Christopher Hyder came to a close second to score 10 points.
Once they took the lead with seven minutes in the first half gone, they never looked back or even gave the lead up afterward. As a whole, the team shot slightly below average from behind the three-point line, however, that did not stop Rodgers from making 2 out of the 4 three-pointers.
The first half Southern took the obvious 32-25 lead after Pine Bluff’s Ghiavonni Robinson sunk a 3 pointer. However it was scoreless for approximately three minutes before anyone scored a point. Pine Bluff’s Trent Whiting scored a layup to ease the score 32-27. At the end of the game the senior guard, Hyder stated that “it’s important to take care of home games, to even come close to winning your conference, you have to win at home.”
Winning at home has been the motto for the team since they have gone undefeated at home so far.
Sophomore, Rashad Andrews, said “we have to keep fighting and keep fighting to be one of the top two seeds.”
Even though Rodgers scored most of the points, Coach Roman Banks said, “we do not want to get the ball stuck there, we look to move the basketball.”
Southern shot 47 percent from the field, 25 percent beyond the arc and 63 percent from the free throw line.
With an eight-point deficit, Arkansas-Pine Bluff shot 42 percent from the field, 18 percent from beyond the arc and 61 percent from the free throw line. Robinson shot the high of 17 points to scuttle hustle for the game and Marcus Williams came from behind with 12 points.
With Conference play dwindling down to it’s several dividends, the Jags only have 6 more games, half of which will be played at F.G Clark Activity Center.
The Jags will host Mississippi Valley State Monday, February 15, at 7:30pm.